What are Enemies for?
by He's-Awesome-and-Eternal
Summary: It has been a few years since Jack opened the puzzlebox that would change his life. He's had many 'friends' turn to enemies, fought many battles, and all that he has gotten out of it is a life lesson: Trust no one, cuz no one cares. And a few broken ribs.
1. A Bud of Confidence

Xiaolin Showdown

Jack Spicer Centric

Title:

Chapter 1

A young teen stood in his badly lit basement, hunched over the remains of a robot that had been destroyed.

"Again," He muttered to himself as he pulled his yellow-orange goggles over his eyes to use a melding tool, allowing his vibrant red hair to fall slightly forward. He absently brushed it back with a gloved hand, rolling his shoulders to loosen them up before continuing the repair of the mound of metal before him.

After more than a year of building and rebuilding the bots, he had become quite efficient at repairs to the point where he could fix multiple in one night, without struggle. He even managed to upgrade and add to his collection of drones.

But this was not the case tonight.

Jack growled in annoyance as the blow-torch refused to light for a few moments as he fumbled to correctly grasp the trigger. He held the metals he was fusing carefully with metal tongs, but after a few minutes of struggling to keep the piece in place, he finally just grabbed it in his gloved hand and carefully melded it in place.

He sighed as he thought back to when he had enjoyed this. Every time spent with repairs he had been abounding with confidence that his upgrades would make the next fight count in his favor. But as time passed with one failure after another, repairing and upgrading and yet never getting any closer to the goal, it had begun to be routine, a required task that was not met without loathing.

Yet he wouldn't complain. It wasn't as if anyone listened anyways. He'd get the job done, and put on a strong face for his next engagement with the Xiaolin Dragons. He may have often complained in the past, cried even (he denied this though, even to himself), but he'd reached a point where he had finally told himself, _Shut up, they don't care!_ This had caused slight surprise and suspicion from the Xiaolin, especially when he only let out a small peep when almost crushed by a falling boulder. Soon though, it had become generally understood that, yes, Jack Spicer had grown a backbone.

His attitude hadn't really changed the past year and a half aside from that though. He was still making world domination speeches and grand entrances to battles. He had just begun feeling a little down when faced with the remains of his defeat, but that was nothing a little pep talk to himself wouldn't fix. And of course, coffee wouldn't hurt…

Jack released the trigger for a moment to look at his mug. Empty. He sighed forlornly, picked up his goggles for a moment to rub his eyes before resetting them and resuming his task. He let out a cavernous yawn, eyes closed for a moment to accommodate it. A searing pain touched his hand and he dropped his project with a screech of pain. He held his left hand close to his chest, panting for a minute, before looking at the damage done. He peeled off the leather glove covering his hand with a whimper, revealing his hand which still wore his biker style glove underneath, and a shallow burn wound near the joint of his pointer finger. After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, he pulled his goggles up to his forehead, kicking the fallen wreckage of the robot to the side to head up the stairs. He knew a blunder like that could only be followed by worse if he didn't get any rest, and he needed to bandage up the wound.

He went into the master bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit from in the cupboards under the sink, opened it and set it on the counter before turning on the faucet to run cool water over it to relieve the swelling. He relaxed slightly at the cool feel, shoulders slumped. It was probably a second degree burn, he figured. He had been amazingly fortunate not to have his finger severed from his hand. He shuddered at the thought as he carefully wrapped his finger with gauze, secure, but loose enough not to put pressure on it. He had learned a lot about first aid the past year as he came home with scratches and gashes from fights with the Xiaolin dragons and other wounds when he worked on his robots. Most of the time it was all minor, hardly worthy of a band-aid, but that hadn't stopped him from worrying and looking up first-aid. He had read up on all possible small wounds, fortunately including burns, or he may have foolishly put ice or cotton on it.

Jack put away all the supplies with a tired sigh. He finally decided to prepare for bed. He looked contemplatively at his electric toothbrush, debating whether to brush or give in to his mounting exhaustion. He heaved yet another sigh as he decided he would regret not cleaning his teeth, which would probably result in some horrible taste in his mouth.

When he was finished he trudged heavy-footed to his bedroom with his injured left hand cradled by the other, kicking off his shoes and glaring at the digital clock on his bedside table that read 3:15 AM. There was not enough time in the day, he thought, not for the first time.

He dropped heavily onto the bed, lying on his stomach with his arms thrown to either side, too tired to bother with taking of his heli-pack or to lie more comfortably.

He sighed into the bed sheets, suppressing a shiver. He didn't bother to pull on the covers. Sleep didn't come as easy to him as it had in the past, when he could just fall into the sheets and asleep instantly. It seemed the more tired he was, the less easily sleep would come to him. That was why even now with his improved hygienic habits and attitude, he still would sleep as long as his body would let him in the morning. Even that, though, was getting shorter. He found that when he got up at 12:00 he felt like a portion of his life had been wasted, so at the latest he was found up at 10:00.

Jack found sleep still eluded him after a long while of waiting blankly, so he got off the bed and started undressing, carefully setting his Heli-pack aside and hanging his coat in the closet. As he did this, his ever-moving mind thought to what the next day would bring.

"_The Xiaolin idiots have been getting cocky lately…I need to do something unexpected."_ He thought as he finally lay comfortably on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. _"Maybe I should finally install that cloaking device for the jack-bots. Then when their eyes are on me, I could have them sneak up behind and surprise them, then I would get the Wu. But first I'd need to harness the power on the shroud of shadows…oh right they took that one in the last fight. So I'll need to see if I can win it in a showdown. Or I could take it from the vault. Of course, that would be a lot easier if I had the shroud of shadows, but even then I would already have it. That would be rather pointless." _His face scrunched up in thought for a few moments, before shrugging and grinning to himself. _"I'll just wing it."_


	2. You Broke It

_Chapter 2_

After only an hour or so of sleep, Jack was woken by the beeping of his watch. He jumped in surprise, sitting up to look at the offending item. He glared for a few moments at the flashing screen until he finally realized it was his Wu tracker. "OH! Right, wu, right.." He said to himself, throwing himself off the bed and yanking on his pants. He grunted in pain when he accidently put pressure on his injured finger, and carefully kept it away from what he was doing, causing his to pull on his red t-shirt awkwardly. He finally fastened on his heli-pack and put his goggles back in place and ran out the door of his bedroom, calling, "Jack-bots! Let's go!"

"Man, why did we have to get up at 5:00? You could've let us sleep at least an hour longer!"

Raimundo was not the only one annoyed at the early wake-up call; the others were dragging their feet too.

"Because we need to get to the Wu before Chase and Wuya do! Besides, Master Fung and I are already up before 5:00." The dragon said, and the others groaned.

"But he is Master Fung…" Omi replied, but he was already resigned to his fate.

Dojo shot them all a silencing look, and opened the scroll. "The Bottle of Eternal Fog. It comes with an infinite supply of thick fog for a quick escape, or just for a compliment to lasers!"

They all stared dully at the attempted humor, and he let his smile drop. "Fine, be that way."

"Let's just get this over with." Raimundo growled and the others nodded, and they mounted Dojo and headed toward the Wu.

*Some time later…*

"It's that way….no…"

"Uh, that's okay partner, let's just spread out and look for it." Clay intoned, and the others nodded. Dojo landed at the base of a cliff in the mountains, and as Kimiko dismounted she commented, "Always in the mountains. It's getting kinda unoriginal."

"Hey, there're only so many places on the planet to hide these things, give us a break!" Dojo whined, and she only rolled her eyes before they all split up to cover the general area Dojo specified.

Clay edged along an overhang on a rocky mountainside until he reached the corner to look around. He was about to turn back, not seeing any more foot holds, but then he spotted it. "Will you lookit that! I found it guys!" He announced as he reached for it. But a moment before his hand could reach it another, deathly pale hand had grasped it.

"Not before I did!"

Clay gasped, then growled, eyes narrowed, "Jack Spicer, you lil varmint! Hand over that Wu!"

"N-hyaaaaagh-" Jack broke out into a yawn in the middle of the word, but refinished, "No!"

The others joined from behind Clay, and Omi commented, "Jack Spicuh, you are up early. When you were on our side you said you did not rise from sleeping until after the noon!"

Jack rubbed his eyes with one hand and held the Wu protectively with the other. "Give me a break, it's been what, two years since then? Not that I_ want _to be up this early." He said as he heaved another yawn. He then added defiantly, "You can't have it! Jack-bots!"

At his call the jack-bots attacked, but within moments they were already in pieces. Kimiko looked unimpressed as she held a head with wires trailing and dropped it nonchalantly. "Are you kidding? These are really lacking, more-so than usual I mean."

Jack fell to his knees on a ledge he had watched from, jaw slack. "My robots…." He whined. "Aww, c'mon! I worked all night on those!" He yelled in an unexpected bought of anger. "You know what? Just take the stupid Wu, I'm going home and back to sleep. Who needs a bottle of fog anyways?"

With that, Jack Spicer threw the bottle down on the rock in front of the Xiaolins….and it did exactly what you'd expect a glass bottle to do. It shattered.

Everybody's jaw dropped, and Jack chuckled nervously as fog billowed up from the spot. "Uh, I meant to do that! Now you can't have it either, Xiaolin losers!" He recovered his superior personality to grin evilly at them, and he summoned his clean-up bot to retrieve the fallen pieces of his Jack-bots.

Kimiko was at a loss for words at seeing a Wu BROKEN just like that. "You idiot, you…you….just look…!"

Jack had been turning to leave, and now looked back over his shoulder boredly for moment before his eyes went wide. "OH! Right, sorry…" They all watched, dumbfounded, as Spicer had his robot sweep up the glass from the spot, leaving the ever-increasing fog to billow up in its wake. A moment later understanding dawned on his face as he looked at the fog. "Oh….you meant….aheh…Bye!"

He jumped into action, Heli-pack whirring, to leave, but a moment later found his face roughly shoved into a stone wall. Ow.

*SLAM*

"You idiot!"

"ow."

"Ow is right! C'mon you BROKE the Bottle of Eternal Fog. ETERNAL FOG! Do you know what that means?" It was Raimundo who was smashing the unfortunate 16-year-old's face into the rock.

"_Unusual for a Xiaolin to use unnecessary force,"_ Jack thought dully as Raimundo dropped him onto the ledge that conveniently lay below.

"It _means _that the _eternal fog_, is now_ loose_. _In the mountains."_

He deliberately over-exaggerated the sentence, talking to him as if to a tiny child.

Jack pulled himself to his feet painfully and stretched. "Fine, fine I get it. I changed the atmosphere of the uninhabited range of mountains with a little extra moisture, so you get to grind my face into the cliff-side."

"Oh…" Although Raimundo would hate to admit it, Jack was kinda right. And it wasn't really all his fault the bottle smashed. It was a Shen Gong Wu, it should have been tougher than that. He also noticed, as evidenced by the blood that began to well up on Spicer's fore-head, that he had hit him against the wall harder than was strictly necessary. "Uh, sorry…I mean, you're still an idiot, but I was a little harsh I guess."

For Jack, the apology was pretty much ruined by the accompanying insult. That and he just now noticed the blood. "Whatever. I'm going home."

Jack stepped around the still silent dragons and started into the air high over a sheer mountain cliff. And that is when his Heli-pak decided to inform him that it had, in fact, run out of charge. 'I AM an idiot.' Jack thought simply as he stalled mid-air above the cliff for a few moments, calling urgently for a Jack-bot as he flailed his arms in its direction. He caught his fingers on a ridge on the bot's side a moment before the Heli-pak sputtered and flicked off. "Eep!" the squeak escaped his mouth as he scrambled desperately to hold on to the now unbalanced robot that was being a little less than intelligent at the moment._ "Still haven't upgraded the defensive mode, got too caught up in the attack mode and repairs…." _His ever roaming mind thought for a moment, before he at once lost his grip with a screech. He started free falling, yells of surprise following behind him, and knocked into the wall and several ledges, letting out several yelps of pain, "Ow, Crap, urk, OW, AGH!"

He finally landed to a stop with a painful crack on the stone ground. He lay on his back and panted painfully, and looked off to the side. He let out an annoyed and pained whine. He was on _another _ledge! He stiffened, eyes screwed shut as he felt the rock begin to give way beneath him. But just as he began to utter "Oh_, CRAP," _he had been grabbed by the front of his shirt and swung mid air for a few moments before finding himself on a solid but not-so unmoving surface. He had already felt nauseous out of pain and the threat of impending death, so this did not help. And then he barfed.

* * *

><p>Yeah so I dunno why my chapters have been so short lately. It kinda stinks. : Sorry about that. I'm kinda tired now, so this is all I have to say. :/


	3. Bestest Enemies

Chapter 3

"WAKE UP!"

*WHUMP*

Jack woke with a start as he was shoved off of Dojo's back. "Ung!"

"It was most foolish not to fully fuel your backpack, Spicah." Omi said.

Raimundo rolled his eyes in agreement as he dismounted, followed by the others. "Yeah, you've done a lot of klutzy things, but this pretty much tops them."

Jack groaned as he finally lifted himself to his feet. He didn't look at them as he started limping towards his house where they had dropped him off, shoulders hunched. "Yeah, whatever."

The group left with a huff at his thanklessness, but he didn't care. He turned slightly to watch them go, then instantly let the charade drop, falling to his knees and leaning over to support himself on one hand. His other hand he clutched to his chest as his eyes began to tear up. He rolled slightly until he sat properly on the front step, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

"Uhm, hh-hi, 9-1-1?"

"Hmmm, we haven't seen Spicer in a while."

"Don't say that Rai!" Kimiko exclaimed.

"Yes, he will give us jinx!" Omi chipped in cryptically.

"It's 'you will jinx us', Omi." Clay sighed, and patted him on the shoulder pityingly as he stood confused. "I know partner, makes no sense."

"It doesn't!"

Dojo interrupted then, "C'mon kids, time for Wu-hunting! My tea is gonna get cold."

Rai continued the search, shaking off the feeling that Jack should not have been absent from the wu finding for so long. If he missed too many more, he may even be worried.

These thoughts fell to unimportance instantly though as a familiar voice met his ears.

"Well I hope you've got a micro-wave in your little asylum, cuz the wu won't be yours any time soon!"

They turned to Jack, who currently had his eyes on the wu already.

"See Rai? You jinxed us!"

As they made the dash to beat Jack to the Wu, Rai couldn't really feel regretful. It just wasn't right without Jack around to try to foil them. Jack was reaching for the wu that was stuck in a hollow tree in the forest they were in just as Raimundo leapt for it. Both their hands hit it at once, and Raimundo smiled confidently as he challenged Jack to a showdown. "The game is to….uh…" Raimundo paused. It was getting harder to think of good challenges. "Get an item to the top of a tree first…I guess."

"That's the best you could think of?" Jack mocked, but was interrupted by the changing of the battle-field. They found themselves each in an identical tree with a ball that had a string attached to it. They soon found they were attached together.

"Wait! I didn't say what Wu we would use."

Jack shrugged a little sheepishly. "Well, uh, I didn't bring any."

"WHAT?"

Jack started upwards top speed with his heli-pack while the Rai was distracted. Rai urgently tried to recover the ground from his opponents apparent advantage with the heli-pack before suddenly being jolted by the rope. "Heya dude! Hold your horses!"

Jack hovered in place to look down at him. The rope was taut between them.

"Looks like we have to be a little more closely matched for this round. Don't fall behind!" Rai yelled as he darted up the branches. Jack muttered something under his breath and followed up, a little slower than before to allow for slack in the rope. Rai was worried though that the heli-pak would still give Jack the advantage. Jack grinned happily, probably thinking he had it in the bag. Rai laughed at Jack's reaction when he suddenly yanked him downwards, causing him to spiral awkwardly while Raimundo moved quickly towards the goal.

Just as Rai was pulling up to the top branches with his end of the rope, he looked back to see the other end which was still in Jack's grasp become tangled in the propellers of his back-pack.

Rai was wrenched down from where he was climbing, falling so that both boys were suspended in midair by the rope that had snagged on a branch. Rai clung to the ball, arms straining. His end of the rope, he noticed, was much further up than Jacks. If Jack would try to start swinging, he could land himself back in his own tree. He yelled this idea down to jack, who was presently attempting to detangle the rope from propeller.

Upon hearing the idea, Rai could tell that Jack really wanted to reject the idea, no doubt because Rai had suggested it. But fortunately he simply nodded. He started swinging his legs, and he slowly gained the momentum needed. Raimundo now realized, to his dismay, just where jack was going to land. Jack finally got the high enough swing, and landed a good yard higher than Rai, who scrambled to attempt to catch up. Just as he thought he may still have a chance, he heard his enemy's cry of triumph. Jack had won. Instantly the trees began to shrink back down to normal size, causing Jack to become dislodged from his perch. He screamed all the way down to the ground, just like old times, and landed with a sizeable thump. Rai simply rode the transformation down, and hopped off.

"Man, hard luck partner. There was no getting out of that one though." Clay said. Rai and the others only sighed, shoulders slumped.

Rai looked back to Jack who was still sprawled on the ground. "Whew!" He made what sounded to be an attempted cheer, and pumped his fist straight in the air. "I win….ha…haha…Ung."

Rai turned around the rest of the way to watch him leave, but he didn't get up. Clay joined him, saying, "Your voice sounds like you've been at it with a belt sander!"

"You won Jack, so you gonna get out of here or what?" Kimiko said sourly.

Jack flashed her a smile from his position. "Darn right I won!" he cut off awkwardly with that, not answering her question. He sighed leaving his arms spread-eagled.

"So…?"

"I'll lie here just as long as I want!" Jack retorted.

"That is a strange way to celebrate victory, Spicah." Omi said, walking over to stare down at him. "Is it fun?"

"NO IT'S NOT FUN!" Jack yelled suddenly. "I…."

They all crowded closer while Omi had jumped back in surprise.

Rai observed him confusedly. "You what?"

"_I…..can't….get up…." _Jack muttered, not looking at him.

"What?"

He sounded much more audible this time around as he admitted in a voice of defeat, "I can't get up."

"What's the holdup kids? Let's get going!" Dojo said, completely out of the loop.

"Wait!" Jack shouted, lifting his head with a wince. "Don't leave me!"

"Alright partner, don't get your knickers in a twist! What's the problem?" Clay asked, kneeling beside him.

"I think I may have broken my spine…." He whined, laying his head back with his eyes screwed shut.

Dojo popped up on Clay's shoulder. "Hey, let me take a look." He crawled off his perch and carefully onto Jack's belly, trying to feel the damage. "How did you survive wearing this big jacket during the summer? You shoulda got heatstroke with how thick this thing is."

"Did a lot for the beatings I took though…" jack muttered.

"Take this jacket off him. I can't figure out anything with so much fabric in the way." Dojo instructed, and Clay did as asked despite Jack's feeble protests. Upon removal of the jacket, revealing the green Frankenstein's monster tank top underneath, dojo gently examined the damage.

"How is he, Dojo?" Omi asked in concern.

Dojo stayed silent, continuing grimly to pull up his shirt, leading Jack to let out a quick little shriek of surprise. "What is this?" Dojo asked Jack seriously, pointing at a marred area on his bruising stomach. Jack looked away awkwardly.

"Jack, this is serious."

"Stitches."

"Why?"

Jack sighed and told him finally. "Last showdown, when my backpack ran out of fuel, I broke a couple bones. Had to get surgery."

The others shared a collective gasp, while dojo just looked angry. "You came to a showdown like this? You shouldn't even be leaving your house, let alone fighting Xiaolin warriors. We're gonna have to get you to a hospital."

Jack simply nodded while Dojo put his shirt back in place and signaled Kimiko to call 9-1-1.

Raimundo just stared with a stunned expression. He had given Jack all he had, and Jack hadn't looked like there was anything wrong with him. He supposed maybe all this time, Jack had been complaining not because he was a whiner, really, but because he wanted somebody to care.

Not that that meant he would cater to this 'need' Jack had. If Jack wanted friends, he would have to be one first.

Or not.

Raimundo sighed putting on a humorous smile as he and Master Fung walked the halls of the hospital, towards Jack Spicer's room. When Fung had heard what happened, he had seemingly sensed Raimundo's dilemma, and told him that it would be a good lesson in mercy to visit Jack when he was in need. Raimundo, of course, initially protested this idea, but in the end he knew it wouldn't be so bad. Omi had hoped to go to woo Jack over to the Xiaolin side, but Fung knew that any of the others would probably only aggravate the young "evil boy genius".

They finally reached the room, room 210, and with Fung's bidding, Rai knocked.

Jack had been on the phone with his dad when he heard the knock. "I'm fine dad, and it was an accident. Nothing to worry about. I think the doctor is back, I'll talk to you later." Jack sighed as he hung up. He placed his phone on the table beside him and spoke loud enough to be heard through the door. "Come in!"

As a familiar Brazilian face peeked in, Jack threw his arms up in exasperation. "Oh great, here comes the Xiaolin warriors to beat me up and take my wu again! well you know what, I don't even ha-oh." He cut off as Raimundo stepped in, followed by the Xiaolin master, Fung. The old master's presence either meant that it was really important, or not. He relaxed all the same. "Hi."

"Uh hey, Jack." Raimundo awkwardly greeted him, shuffling his feet. Fung smiled more easily, seeming perfectly at home with the situation.

"So, are you here to tell me that I've caused some kind of spiritual turmoil, or did you want to remind me that you won't be going easy on me next time?" Jack asked, arms crossed.

"Quite the opposite actually." Fung began. "You need ample time to heal, and until you have had that time I do not want you engaging in any Showdowns with my students. I have given them permission to call your parents or the hospital if you are seen outside your house without the consent of your doctor."

Jack's eyes went wide, and he looked thoroughly angered by this idea. Fung, though, held a hand up for silence. "However, we have no control over what you may do besides that. I only hope you will keep your physical health in mind."

Jack leaned forward, ready to protest, but leaned back again with a resigning sigh. "Fine. I'm surprised you'd care so much though."

"Hey, we all do! Here, we have something for you." Raimundo brightened up to pass him an envelope. Jack looked it over critically, but soon ripped it open. In it was a card, which he read out loud. "Get well soon, but not too soon." He looked up disbelievingly, but Rai just held back a laugh and gestured for him to continue. Jack opened the card. In the left side was a gift cart for a hard-ware supplier. On the other side, an explanation. "Because nothing means more between best enemies than a bribe."

Jack stopped for a moment, looking at all the signatures by the monks, omi's accompanied by a wal-mart smiley sticker, then looked up at Raimundo who waited expectantly.

"This…" Jack began, tearing up slightly. "Is the best thing an enemy has ever done for me."

Raimundo smiled sincerely, and said, "Well, we didn't know exactly where you get your parts for your robots, but we thought you'd probably be insulted if we gave you a wal-mart card."

"But where'd you get the card? I didn't know greeting cards for enemies existed!" Jack exclaimed, regarding the gift as If it were gold.

Raimundo shrugged. "Kimiko googled it and we found a store nearby."

"You know this doesn't change anything though." Jack said, though with a smile.

"No way." Raimundo agreed. "What are enemies for?"


End file.
